


and home before dark

by verity



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bakery, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Cats, Derek With Cats, Family Feels, M/M, Small Towns, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Winter, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mystery of the absent Hale brother was hardly a mystery at all until he appeared at last, set on taking up residence out in the woods.</p><p>(In which Derek is a hedgewitch. With a cat.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and home before dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1001cranes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/gifts).



> 1001cranes asked on twitter for a fic in which Derek was a hedgewitch with a cat familiar. This ensued. Thanks to Clio for the typo once-over!
> 
> content notes: brief reference to infant mortality in ye old times

The Hale sisters own the bakery in the town square.

There are actually two bakeries, as Scott always even-handedly points out. The Whittemores do a brisk trade in bread, crusty sourdough and other hearty fare, but the Hales outdo them in every other respect. Their buns, their cookies, their pastries with dough light as air that melts in the mouth. "Magic," Stiles says every time as he licks his lips and dusts the crumbs from his apron.

It's true. Everyone knows the Hale sisters are witches.

—

"Missy delivered a healthy foal!" Scott says, hanging up his broad-brimmed hat at the door. "I helped, Stiles. Deaton says—"

Stiles snorts. "What else is new?"

Scott cuffs him on the back of the head. "Well, the Hale brother has come home. Talk is that he's to join his sisters in the bakery."

"You should have lead with that," Stiles says, leaning forward.

Scott and Stiles have been brothers since they were small, when a cruel winter left their parents widowed and the kinder one that followed found them wed. Now that they're grown, the room upstairs that they've shared for years has gotten cramped, but it's familiar and cozy, and neither of them are bound to leave home soon. Stiles is still apprenticing with his father the blacksmith and peacekeeper, and Scott with Deaton the healer. Scott's mother Melissa is a midwife and has welcomed half the town into the world, including the Hales, back when she apprenticed with her own mother.

"I didn't _see_ him, Stiles," Scott says. "I only heard from Miss Blake. But Cora was minding the counter when I went into the bakery, and you know she never comes out of the back unless Laura's been called away."

Cora's sharp-tongued, though her nimble fingers craft incomparable sweets. There's a reason that Laura leaves Cora to the oven and takes care of their patrons herself. "Erica says that his hair is jet-black, and his eyes like the rippling water of the spring. She says—"

"You spend too much time with Erica," Scott says.

—

Erica Reyes is the town seamstress, and a gossip to rival Lydia Martin the bookseller. Other towns might look askance at Erica's queer turns or Lydia's steely intellect, but Beacon Hills isn't like other towns. For instance: they have witches.

It's a point of pride.

—

Stiles's father lets him go early from the smithy the next day. "I know you're anxious to get to market and see that Hale boy," he says as Stiles washes the worst of the ash from his hands in the basin. "I bet his sisters have a bun or two set aside for you, too."

"I'll bring one back for Melissa." Stiles dries his hands on a rag and surveys the damage. There are still dark half-moons of grime beneath his fingernails, but the worst is gone. "Maybe some for you and Scott, if there's anything left worth having."

His father claps him on the back. "Take a basket. Just in case."

The walk into town from the smithy isn't long, but it feels like it takes ages. Stiles can't say quite why he's so eager to see the Hale brother, though novelty might be enough. Beacon Hills is a small town, and they're still talking about the adventure of the Boyd sisters' renegade geese last winter.

—

As promised, Laura has a bun set aside for him, and half-a-dozen pastries besides. "I knew you'd be in today," she says, a smile brightening her face. "Derek, come meet my favorite customer."

"I'm sure we've met," her brother calls from the kitchen. "Beacon Hills is a small town."

Though Stiles just thought the same to himself, he bristles to hear the accusation from an outsider. "And what if it is?" he says. "Your sisters' bakery is talked of three towns over. Just because it's familiar—"

Derek's exactly as Erica said he would be, hair like jet and eyes like the algae-green spring waters, handsome and fair-skinned. And he's staring right at Stiles when he steps out of the kitchen, stopping at the counter to peer at him. "No, I don't know you," Derek says after a minute, sounding puzzled.

"I'm the blacksmith's son," Stiles says. "His apprentice, now. Stiles Stilinski." He holds out his hand.

Derek doesn't take it.

Laura elbows her brother back behind her. "Forgive my brother, he has no manners," she says, packing Stiles's pastries and a sweet-smelling sachet into his basket. She drops the coins Stiles places on the counter into the tin beneath, where they rattle before settling into place. "I'll send him around to you soon. He'll need nails for the house he's building."

"Of course," Stiles says, like _that_ makes any sense.

—

The Hales have no family but each other, since the late and treacherous Lady Katherine set their home ablaze a decade past. Derek's been gone nearly as long, sent away to family in the west. Laura and Cora spoke rarely but fondly of him in his absence, seemed in no haste to call him home. The mystery of the absent Hale brother was hardly a mystery at all until he appeared at last, set on taking up residence out in the woods.

"He's a hedgewitch," Lydia says, dropping another book onto the stack in Stiles's arms. "It's perfectly obvious."

"Hardly," Stiles says. "Though he's certainly no baker. I saw Cora actually throw him out of the kitchen the other day."

Lydia hums. "That must have been a pretty picture. Have I passed you Thorsi yet, or only Ptah?"

"I don't read Lemurian," Stiles says pointedly. "What's a hedgewitch?"

"You're no use at all," she says. "Move my ladder a bit left, will you?"

—

"This isn't fair," Scott protests when Melissa tells them at supper. "We're supposed to deliver a calf this week. _I_ was going to deliver the calf! Deaton was going to let me do it on my own!"

"Don't look at me," Stiles's father says to Stiles's questioning look. "You complain all the live-long day that I work you too hard."

Melissa clears her throat. "You're both of you strong, kind-hearted young men. I can't understand why you'd refuse to help the Hale boy build his house for a little coin."

"Why does he even need a house way out in the forest?" Scott says. "His sisters have a perfectly good one in town."

"He's a hedgewitch," Melissa says. "He needs nature."

Stiles drags his spoon through the dregs of his stew. "What's a hedgewitch?" he asks for the second time that day.

"Don't look at me," Stiles's father says.

—

Derek's house won't be anything to look at when they're done—just a single room with a hearth and a loft. "You're sure you don't want anything else?" Scott says, looking at the plan Derek's drawn up. "A lean-to, maybe, for wood. The winter here's hard."

"I suppose." Derek steps back from the lumber the Boyds delivered this morning, eyes the cleared site as if he's trying to vision his new home in his mind's eye. "I don't remember."

Stiles and Scott share a long glance. "You'll have a lean-to," Scott says. "We'll help you lay in some wood, maybe dig you a cellar. It'll be hard to get into town."

"I'll be all right," Derek says. "I don't need much. It's only me and the cat."

"You have a cat?" Stiles says, perking up.

Derek shrugs. "Probably. If she likes it here."

They build the house in a week, the three of them together. Isaac Lahey comes out to help them thatch the roof, because Derek's never done it before and Stiles and Scott don't trust themselves not to make a hash of it. "This'll see you through," Isaac says when they've finished, eyeing the thatch. "You did well, Scott. Next year—"

Scott blushes—there's no way Lady Allison is going to leave her parents' keep for a little thatched cottage in the village, but a fellow can dream. "Next year, our house is due. Father's too old to be up on ladders anymore."

"I'd like to hear you say that to his face," Stiles says with a laugh.

Derek looks up at his roof, touches his hand to the door until it swings in. He doesn't say anything at all.

—

"I've seen Derek's cat," Scott announces, coming in with an armful of wood for the fire. "She was in the bakery. She's a tabby."

"Aren't witches' familiars supposed to be black?" Stiles says dubiously.

Scott shrugs.

The air's cool enough that Stiles's breath comes out in white puffs when he sets out on his walk to the bakery the next morning. The leaves have turned their fall colors, yellow and umber and red, and they'll soon be crisp brown on the yard for Stiles to rake away before his father scolds him. He whistles the whole way, his hands tucked in his pockets against the cold. By the time he gets to the bakery, he's anxious to sink his teeth into a hot scone and drink one of Laura's tisanes.

"Where are your mittens?" Laura scolds him when he opens the door, chill air whistling at his back. "Go in the back and warm up, you silly thing."

Cora's just taking a tray of sweet buns out of the oven when Stiles stumbles in, and she hisses at him while he dodges out of the way so she can rest them on a cooling rack. "If you're back here, you can't be underfoot," Cora says. "The cat has more sense than you."

"The cat?" Stiles sees her after a moment, perched high on top of a shelf near the oven. She's short but wide, a furry orange sausage. He'd think she was dozing were it not for the eye cracked just a bit open, taking in the scene. "What's her name?"

"Cat," Derek says, appearing from nowhere.

Stiles jumps, narrowly avoiding collision with another rack. " _You_ need a bell," he says. "Are you here to take advantage of your sisters' hospitality, too?"

"You're not taking advantage," Laura calls from the front. "We still owe you for the nails."

"Derek, on the other hand…" Cora shoves a bowl into Stiles's hands and says, "Stir."

Derek stalks through the kitchen toward the oven. "Come down," he says to the cat. "We've business at home, you know that."

The cat begins licks her paws, tongue lapping at the pads in dainty pink flicks.

"You know, one of the miracles attested to Saint Purza is that when she was an invalid, she dropped her woolwork on the floor, and a cat picked it up in its mouth and brought it to her in bed," Stiles says. "I don't think that cat's going to pay you any mind, Hale."

"Hmm," Derek says. He holds out his arm and the cat leaps down onto it, climbs up on his shoulders and settles around his neck like a sullen pelt.

Cora elbows Stiles, whose arm has gone still. " _Stir_ , or get out."

—

Stiles comes out of the house one morning to find his father engrossed in conversation in front of the smithy across the yard.

"More nails?" Stiles calls out to them as he strides over. "Adding on another room?"

Derek looks over at him and huffs out a breath. "I've come about a pot. For cooking."

"I dare say that's what most of us use pots for, yes," Stiles says, rolling his eyes.

"Are you really so set to weather out the winter on your own, son?" Stiles's father says. "It's dangerous. The cold takes even the strong from us some years."

Derek nods. "The woods will care for me," he says. "And I won't be alone. I have my cat."

"Well, I see why you find him so fascinating," Stiles's father says after Derek leaves. "I don't remember him being quite so strange as a boy, but Laura said it came to him late, the magic. She says sometimes it takes people that way."

"I don't think he's _strange_ ," Stiles says.

"No," his father says, peering at him. "No, I don't suppose you do. Come, to the forge with you, we've got a long day ahead of us."

—

"I hope you know what you're about," Scott says while Stiles saddles up their horse, Foster. "I wish you'd let me come with you. It's not safe to go alone now, you know."

The snow coming down now is light, the first of the year—just soft clusters on Stiles's red cloak and a thin dusting on the ground. "Melissa said to come if she wasn't back by tonight." Stiles's eyes drop to his full saddlebag. "She might—I wouldn't want anyone to go wanting."

Melissa doesn't just bring babies into the world—she buries the ones who don't make it. She makes the shrouds herself, the dresses, so no one's child need go into the ground without ceremony. The mother she's attending to in the next town over has had a troubled pregnancy, and Melissa left three days ago when she received the summons to what was sure to be a difficult labor and delivery. "I know," Scott says. They've all of them lost someone they loved in their family. "Stay with Mom until it's clear to come back?"

"Of course," Stiles says.

The road to the next town passes through the woods, and Stiles is at the forest's edge when the snow begins to come down fast and thick. He's not more than half an hour out, though, or he wouldn't be in good weather. If he presses on, he's certain to reach shelter before long. And it's only the first snow of the year—surely it'll lighten.

It doesn't.

Stiles might be foolhardy, but he isn't stupid. He dismounts, finding the snow already up to his ankles, and grabs Foster's reins. They can take shelter beneath a tree until the storm passes. Surely it won't be long.

—

Stiles wakes up when a lioness sinks her teeth into his leg.

"What?" he shouts, then registers the snow still beating down around them, Foster shivering beside him. Stiles isn't sure if he can get up. He's cold to the bone.

He might well die out here.

At least it'll be in the jaws of a lion—that'll give Beacon Hills something to talk about.

The lioness drags him gently out from under the tree, which is when Stiles realizes her teeth have never done more than grazed the skin—and gets him close to Foster. She keeps nudging at Stiles until he gets on Foster's back—what, like he's going to disagree with a mysterious, blizzard-rescue _lion_ —then takes Foster's lead in her mouth and trots off.

Stiles dozes off.

—

When he wakes up, he's in bed. The ceiling looks familiar.

"I made that nail," Stiles says to the ceiling.

"You nearly froze to death," Derek says, leaning over the bed until Stiles is forced to look him in the eye. "I had to send the cat after you."

"I thought she was a lion," Stiles says.

Derek shrugs. "Oh, she is, sometimes."

Right now, the cat is lying next to Stiles, wedged up all along his side. She nudges at his hand in a familiar motion until Stiles is forced to lift it and begin petting her. The movement takes a lot out of him. He's so tired, but he feels like he's slept a lot already. "How long have I been here?" he says.

"Three days," Derek says. "The storm hasn't let up. It won't yet, not for a while."

Stiles blinks. "You didn't make a storm so you could keep me here, did you?"

"Why would I do that?" Derek says, sounding exasperated.

"I don't know, why is your cat a lion?" Stiles says.

Derek shrugs again. "You'd have to ask her."

The cat purrs.

Stiles falls back asleep.

—

He notices more, the second time he wakes up. How Derek's little house is cheery, the two windows hung with bright curtains, dried spices and apples hanging from pegs on the wall. How the cat is eating a big wedge of meat pie from a plate on the table. How the sun is shining bright outside.

"Oh," Stiles says. "The storm broke."

"No," Derek says. He's sitting at the little table, sorting a pile of stones that look all the same to Stiles's bleary and untutored eye. "That's just the house. You've only been asleep a few hours."

Stiles sits up—it's slow going, but he manages it, and gets on his own two feet for a few wobbly seconds before he has to sit down again. "I want to see."

Derek comes over and helps him up over to the closest window. It's not so far—just a few feet, the house is small—but Stiles isn't quite up to doing it on his own. "Wow," Stiles says, leaning against Derek. "It's—"

Outside the house, the clearing is living and green, grass sprung up around the wooden doors of the little cellar that Stiles and Scott built, and there's a garden teeming with herbs and fresh berries. There's a chicken hatch that Stiles doesn't remember building, and a few flowers blooming at the corner of the house, by the lean-to.

"You're a hedgewitch," Stiles says slowly.

"The woods remember me," Derek says. "They remember my family. I—I had to come home, eventually, you see. And they tell me—why were you out in that storm, anyway?"

"I was going to bring some things to my stepmother," Stiles says. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You shouldn't do that." Derek's arm tightens around Stiles's waist. "Don't—the winter is hard here. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Stiles looks up at Derek—they're the same height, really, except for how Derek's holding Stiles up and Stiles has hunched against Derek's side. Derek's safe and solid and warm, like his little house in the woods—something bright and new. "Me, huh? Thought I wasn't too memorable, maybe on the annoying side."

"You were different when you were a kid," Derek says. "Scrawny. Mouthy. I didn't—"

"I haven't changed that much," Stiles says.

Derek smiles at him. He really does look like a hero out of one of Erica's stories, only he's just a man, and a witch, and maybe Stiles's very own. "Still mouthy, it's true."

Stiles shows him just how that mouth can be put to use, thank you very much.

—

"You're sure you don't want to add on a room?" Scott says anxiously, dodging the cat as she bats at his ankle. "Expand the root cellar? What on earth are you going to do for the winter next year?"

It's warm and sunny out, and Derek is carrying the last basket of Stiles's things in, not that Stiles had so very many to bring with. Stiles tilts back his head and looks at the deep blue sky, framed like a picture by the soaring trees around them. "I think we'll be just fine."

**Author's Note:**

> AND THE BABY TOTALLY LIVED AND HER MOM NAMED HER AFTER MELISSA
> 
> The miracle attributed to Saint Purza is actually one attested to the real-life Saint Clare of Assisi.
> 
> And Lemuria is a real place. [Sort of.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuria_\(continent\))
> 
>  
> 
> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] and home before dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9100240) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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